A little while back I posted a couple builds I did for a married couple which I called the Soul Mates. I built them together hoping it might add some mojo. They are now all done, assembled, packed up and sent out the door. Below are a couple pictures of them. They came out great! They are Custom Blend steel with S&S couplers, Shimano Ultegra and DT 1450 MC wheels, very nice.

Here is a titanium 29er I just finished up for John A. We are going to be building this up with Sram XX, a Fox F29 QR15 Taper and some very nice custom Edge/King wheels from Justin Spinelli at Luxe Wheelworks. I’m also having some custom anodizing done on the headset parts so that the Cane Creek cups match the rest of the anodizing on the bike.

This year we had a local racer put one of our carbon frames to the test. She is a seasoned road racer but this was her first year in cross. We were all pretty amazed to see her success. She took to cyclocross like a duck to water and loved her cross frame. She was kind enough to share some pictures and a little description of how things went.

1st year racing cross.

Fall of 2010 I decided to try and do some cyclocross races. I got myself a  new carbon Strong frame in August, learned how to mount and dismount and then tried my first race on September 26th.

With a pretty small field and most of them cat 4 women and cat 4 men I wasn’t really sure what to expect. I managed to come in 1st, so I decided to travel to Idaho for the next weekend of racing and see how I lined up in a bigger field. The first day we raced with the cat 1/2/3 women so I wasn’t quite sure who was a 4. I battled it out with one other girl who I assumed was a 3 and turns out she was a 4 and took 1st. So the next day of racing I knew who to watch and learned that no one can be trusted in a cross race. I was able to come in 1st with a few minute gap.

Long story short, I raced almost every weekend and enjoyed cross racing throughout Montana, including the Bozeman weekend and Rolling Thunder. My first race as a cat 3 was at the Colorado Cup & Boulder Cup weekend. This was my first out-of-state cross-racing experience and it was a lot of fun. The highlight of my season was when we traveled to Iowa City, IA for the 3-day race, Jingle Cross, to see how I lined up in a bigger 2/3 field.

I took 1st on Friday night, 1st on Saturday and 2nd on Sunday. After that I decided to try an elite race so I upgraded again to a 2 and we traveled to Portland. I raced both days at the Stanley Portland Cup. The first day my goal was to just finish the race. I was doing great, riding in the upper 20s and got stuck in race-space. I stopped racing a lap early thinking I was done, so I DNF’d myself. Second day, I made sure I finished and ended up 28th.It was so much fun to race with crowds of people cheering you on at every difficult section. It was especially nice to hear the crowd acknowledge the bike I was riding. One guy was yelling at the top of the run-up, “There goes that carbon Strong again!”.

After a season of racing in many different conditions I have to say this carbon Strong frame is an amazing bike! It handled great in all conditions, hard-pack dirt, 20 degree ice, Portland mud. The fit is perfect, the bike corners great and feels like a feather up climbs. After a great season on a great bike, I am hooked. The only thing that bums me out is I wish I would have started racing cross earlier.

Results:

2010-12-05 Stanley Porland Cup USPG – Elite Race – Day 2 – 28th place
2010-11-26 Jingle Cross Rock – cat 2/3 – Day 1 – 1st place
2010-11-27 Jingle Cross Rock – cat 2/3 – Day 2 – 1st place
2010-11-28 Jingle Cross Rock – cat 2/3 – Day 3 – 2nd place
2010-11-21 Z – Cross – Montana State Championship – cat 1/2/3 – 2nd place
2010-11-20 Cat/Griz Cross – cat 1/2/3 – 2nd place
2010-11-13 Helena Cyclocross – cat 1/2/3 – 2nd place
2010-11-06 RiverFront Cross Race – cat 1/2/3 – 3rd place
2010-10-30 Colorado Cup – day 1 – cat 3 – 4th place
2010-10-31 Boulder Cup – day 2 – cat 3 – 1st place
2010-10-16 Rolling Thunder – cat 4 – 1st place
2010-10-9 MSU CX Weekend – cat 4 – 1st place
2010-10-10 MSU CX Weekend – cat 4 – 1st place
2010-10-1 Moose Cross – cat 4 – day 1 – 2nd place
2010-10-2 Moose Cross – cat 4 – day 2 – 1st place
2010-09-26 Copper Mountain Cyclocross – cat 4 – 1st place

here are a couple more of the cool bikes that have shipped in the last week or two. We’ll be posting more images in are Galleries soon.

This is Phil’s carbon frame with Sram Red and Zipp 303’s. It weighs 13.2 pounds as pictured.

This is a Steel Personal Blend with S&S couplings. It’s hard to see in the photo but it has a very good looking and classy paint job.

This frame is a steel Custom Blend with Sram Force.

So here is something you don’t see everyday. Mark C’s getting a classic NORBA geo 26″ geared MTB. Seems all the MTB’s I build anymore are 29ers, some single speed, some belt drive, others with sliders, giant tire clearance, set up for touring or some combo of any or all. When I do build 26″ they are usually single speed. This is a refreshing change back to what made up nearly100% of the MTB frames I built not much longer than about 10 years ago. Things sure do change fast in the MTB world.

Next up is John A’s titanium 29er complete with a tapered fork, Sram XX kit and these sweet wheels from Justin Spinelli at Luxe Wheelworks.